Lebanese Interior Minister and two judicial and security sources reported that initial data available to authorities indicates that the Israeli Mossad is behind the killing of Mohamed Sarour, who has been accused by Washington for years of facilitating the transfer of funds from Iran to Hamas. Sarour (57 years old) was found dead last Tuesday with multiple gunshot wounds inside an apartment in the town of Beit Meri overlooking Beirut, after his family lost contact with him since the third of this month. A sum of money was found with him, which the perpetrators did not steal.
Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said during an interview with the local channel Al-Jadeed on Sunday night that “the crime, according to the available data, was carried out by intelligence agencies.” In response to a question about whether it was the Mossad, Mawlawi answered, “Yes, the data so far indicates this matter.” A Lebanese judicial source confirmed on Monday that “all data suggests that the Israeli Mossad is behind the murder” of Sarour, explaining that “the investigation is still in its early stages, working to gather threads especially from communication data.”
According to a Lebanese security source last week, Sarour worked for financial institutions affiliated with Hezbollah, the most prominent political and military force in Lebanon supported by Tehran. In August 2019, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on four individuals including Sarour, stating that he was “responsible for transferring tens of millions of dollars annually from the Quds Force (responsible for external operations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard) to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades,” the military wing of Hamas. It was noted that by 2014, he was responsible for all financial transfers between the two parties and had “a long history of working” for a financial institution operating on behalf of Hezbollah.
A prominent Lebanese security source told AFP on Monday that “the Mossad probably used Lebanese and Syrian agents to lure Sarour to a villa in Beit Meri” where “they tortured and killed him.” The involved party reportedly used “silenced guns” and after committing the crime, “erased fingerprints.”
Last week, Sarour's family called on Lebanese security agencies to “reveal the truth,” warning against “dealing with the crime as a passing incident.” In early March 2024, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Asia and the Middle East, Jesse Baker, visited Beirut where he urged Lebanese political and financial officials to prevent the transfer of money to Hamas from Lebanon, according to media reports.
Lebanon and Israel are technically in a state of war, and Lebanese authorities periodically announce the arrest of agents and spy networks working for Israel. In January 2019, the Lebanese army announced the arrest of a person involved in an assassination attempt on a Hamas official in southern Lebanon, stating that he confessed to working for Israeli intelligence. The history of Mossad operations in Lebanon dates back over fifty years. In April 1973, Ehud Barak, who later became Prime Minister of Israel, led a unit disguised in women's clothing that assassinated three Palestinian officials in Beirut, namely Mohamed Yusuf al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, and Kamal Nasser. Years later, Palestinian leader Ali Hassan Salameh was assassinated in a car bomb explosion in Beirut in January 1979. Israel pursued the four officials for their involvement in the murder of 11 Israelis during the Munich Olympics in 1972.
